Committee to ask Cooley to take over Kilbeggan museum

The local group running the museum at Locke’s Distillery in Kilbeggan have announced to staff that they have entered into negotiations with Cooley Distillers to take over and run the museum.“We notified staff on Friday that we are talking to Cooley about them taking over the museum/heritage side,” said Jim O’Keeffe of the Kilbeggan Preservation and Development Association (KPDA).“We have done as much as we possibly with it; we have developed it as far as we can develop it. But we’re very much dependent on public funding, and that is less and less certain all the time,” he said.“For the business to progress further, it needs investment. We have been working very closely with Cooley over the last ten or fifteen years, and we’re basically ‘inter-married’, and Cooley have put a lot of extra work into it, and have seent he ptoential it has for their business, and at the end of the day, they have the money, and they have the marketing experience. You can’t match the expertise they have, so we have entered into negotiation with them to see about the taking over the whole thing as an entirety.”The KPDA holds a 99 year lease on the museum end of the building, and there are over 80 years still to run on that lease.“This is one of the options that we are looking at, and the other option would be to keep things the way they are.”The problem with this option is, however, that the museum is so dependent on public funding, and in the current climate, that creates uncertainty, and could lead to possible closure of the facility for some months of the year.There are five people employed full-time at the museum, and at busy times, others are taken on, with the help of funding from Pobal.According to Mr. O’Keeffe, Cooley are quite interested in the proposal. “But it’s going to boil down to the nuts and bolts or how it’s going to be done.”He said that John Teeling, CEO of Cooley, is involved in the negotiations.“John Teeling has been a great supporter since day one, and has always been there, willing to listen to our ideas, so we have a good ally in that area. At the end of the day, they can see the potential,” he said, adding that he believes Cooley is interested in investing in and expanding the museum, to make it into a viable business. At present, the museum attracts up to 50,000 visitors a year, but it has been affected somewhat this year by the slow down in the tourist trade.A public meeting is to be held in the distillery on Monday night next, at 9 p.m., to inform people of what has been happening in the negotiations with Cooley.